Half-sisters Martha Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright Rose didn’t grow up together, but they share a musical heritage that’s not just from their father, Loudon Wainwright III’s side of the family. Both their mothers, Kate McGarrigle and Suzzy Roche, used to sing their daughters to sleep with lullabies – and this 16-song collection pays tribute to that tradition. Indeed, no fewer than five of the songs have the word ‘lullaby’ in the title, including a deliciously warm take on Woody Guthrie’s ‘Hobo’s Lullaby’ and Kate McGarrigle’s beautiful folk song, ‘Lullaby For A Doll’, wherein the sisters’ voices intertwine so intricately, it’s sometimes hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
The songs broadly fit into two categories; sweet, conventional bedtime anthems and less rose-tinted, often acerbic prayers for infant sleep. The former camp includes the lovely country twang of ‘Prairie Lullaby’, which does exactly what it says on the tin, the old-time ‘All The Pretty Little Horses’ and ‘Do You Love An Apple’, a traditional Irish song, famously recorded by both The Dubliners and The Bothy Band.
The second category is probably more interesting. Loudon Wainwright III’s ‘Lullaby’ shoves the saccharine out with the bath water; while not the kindest, it’s a sentiment that any parent will understand (“Shut up and go to bed... I’m sick and tired of all your worries”). The hilarious ‘Baby Rocking Medley’, penned by US folkie Rosalie Sorrels, is a self- described “hostile baby rocking song”, complete with a spoken word interlude about being awake in the wee hours with a child that just refuses to sleep.
Richard and Linda Thompson’s harrowing and depressing ‘End Of The Rainbow’ is either an arch lesson in irony or a searing ode to familial dysfunction, as the singer addresses a sleeping infant thus: “Your father is a bully and he thinks that you’re a pest/ And your sister she’s no better than a whore”. Pick of the maladjusted litter, however, is the creepy Tudor-style murder ballad, ‘Long Lankin’, a deliciously blood-soaked nightmare before bedtime.
By turns sweet and scary, these lovingly performed cradle songs are a joy.